Soccer Sunday: Your Running Commentary

Today’s FA Cup semifinal match between Chelsea and Manchester City will capture the attention of soccer fans across the globe.

Manchester City have steamrolled through the competition thus far in the tournament, outscoring opponents 13-0 in just four matches. If there is a club capable of overturning City’s favorable fortune, however, it’s Chelsea, who have won four of the last six FA Cup tournaments.

City may have to do without the services of David Silva for the match today, who hasn’t been completely ruled out by manager Roberto Mancini, but has instead been listed as a game time decision. His counterpart, Rafa Benitez, will likely opt to start Ryan Betrand at left-back in the absence of Ashley Cole, who is still nursing an injured hamstring.

Both clubs have claimed the trophy in the past two seasons, and with disappointing performances in the Premier League and Champions League spoiling expectations so far this season, winning the FA Cup tournament stands as the last chance for either club to “save” their season.

If you will be watching today’s action, please feel free to share your thoughts, opinions and some play-by-play in the comments section below.

yeah, it was bad. At this point though, a bad call on offside happens just about every week. I think we can say that the call is just very difficult to get right every single time and mistakes will be made. It simply happens too often for it to be incompetence. Maybe it’s like the NFL and NBA in that the game is played by faster players these days. Just a thought.

The hypothesis that there are more bad calls because of the speed of the current game is a sound one. Admittedly not conclusive but while anecdotal in nature, a lot of people on this board have watched a lot of ball over the years and some of believe that there are more bad ones now. Interesting discussion.

Well, it’s a hypothesis, but I don’t really think so. I’ve watched a lot of soccer over the years (to give you an idea how much — I remember watching the opening game of WC-70, Mexico-USSR), and until relatively recently there really were no replays that would show if a call was bad or not. We saw refs made calls, sometimes questioned them, but there were no evidence to show that officials blew a call. Now you can dissect every call from every conceivable angle.

If modern day video technology for replay in all aspects of the game had been available since the 1960’s, it is possible the entire history of the game would look very different.

Just to give you one small example, I saw Pele play a fair amount and in those days stars had to take care of themselves.

He often did a lot of things when the ref and linesmen where looking the other way that would have gotten him arrested never mind a red card.

Today pictures of that would be all over twitter and FIFA would be banning players left and right .

Soccer isn’t basketball, you don’t people who are almost literally nearly twice as big and almost twice as fast in the same confined quarters.

There is a much larger field. The players are still comparatively normal sized. Examine Barca’s lineup some time.

The average athlete is probably faster than he was twenty years ago; but in soccer he still has to run WITH the ball and make it do things in time with his speed and that is still a very rare quality.

So defending speedsters still comes down to reading the game and proper positioning.
The ball is lighter and while you can do more with it what has happened is it has made set pieces more dangerous.

The biggest difference in the game is that as a general rule everywhere, the fields are far higher quality and far more uniform. This has made tiki taka for example far more useful. It’s much harder to play Barca’s style in the mudbowl that many pitches in England used to be (or in Denver in a blizzard).

Exactly…Pulis is a moron… his team has no creativity…they have lost 6 of their last 7 matches with other being a nil-nil draw at home with WBA… if at this point you are not looking to find a way to score goals then you are be definition a moron… If a player that has broken into a top 20 national side can’t even make the bench for a sorry nose-diving kick ball side, then I hope they go down…

Jozy has not been taking PK;s all season, and I see no reason why. These are his first PK’s. Had he been taking all the penalties he had earned, he would easily have been 2nd in scoring in the league table and not fat behind Boney, who has taken 5 or more. JA is constantly fouled. but because of his size, he rarely goes down. I have seen defenders try and foul or tackle and literally bounce off him and he was whistled for the foul. I think the next step in JA learning curve is to start going down after grevious fouls and take the penalty kicks. It will reduce the fouls on him considerably.

How does Brek Not make the bench, either his foot is seriously jacked up or he’s getting the michael bradley treatment. The idea that the kid needs time to settle in is ridiculous he’s better than kightley, whelan and ethrington. This is another grass isn’t greener. Now I see why Besler and Gonzalez along with Zusi will probably stay in MLS until after the world cup their is no point to moving if playing time becomes a scarce commodity.

So your choices are either he’s hurt or he’s being frozen out for some political reason like he’s not the boss’ guy?

How about Pulis hates Americans? That was always a good one.

Is it possible that maybe Pulis thinks he’s doesn’t exactly fit the team right now?

Or maybe he doesn’t want to throw him into the pressure cooker of relegation?

Pulis said Shea is one for the future.
So if he then he puts Brek out there and Brek screws up and because of that Stoke goes down, the fans will want to kill Mr Shea.
And Shea’s career at Stoke will be over almost before it starts.